“Destroying oneself, he thought ruefully, should always be done at a deliberate pace.”

“I have been considering the possibility that the facts that can be ascertained about this cheese fail to satisfy because the facts themselves mask a metaphysical truth that can be known only through the transcendent, poetic expression of the cheddar. That is, though the world itself can never truly be known, one might begin to know some truth about the world through a metaphysical cheese”

“Destroying oneself, he thought ruefully, should always be done at a deliberate pace.”

“Melville to Hawthorne: "In your stories, you seem to understand that the dramatic moments come not when a character must choose between right and wrong buy when he must choose between two wrongs.”

“Original sin is a very commercial idea,” said Duyckinck. “How do you think the Bible stays in print year after year?”

“He suddenly saw the enterprise of literature as essentially mad.”